Volume 3, Chapter 22, Sam Adams Rallies Boston
The vital question, then, was what the reaction of the people of the several colonies would
be to Patrick Henry's trumpet call. A preponderance of the people were clearly delighted. Most
of the colonists found out about the Virginia Resolves by early July. By mid-August, Governor
Governor Francis Bernard of Massachusetts was warning the Crown that two or three months
ago I thought that this people would submit to the Stamp Act without actual opposition,
but the publishing of the Virginia Resolves proved an alarm bell to the disaffected. And
the British General, Thomas Gage, stationed in New York, called the Resolves the signal
for a general outcry over the continent.
But if most of the people were awakened and stirred by Henry and Virginia, who would lead
them?
For the masses cannot act without some form of organization and articulate leadership.
No help, of course, could be expected from the Arch-Tory and opportunist Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin predictably adjusted meekly and easily to the Stamp Act.
We might as well have hindered the sun setting. Let us make as good a night of it as we can.
Franklin proceeded to make a good night of it, indeed. Having happily filled the colonial
post office with his relatives, he advised his fellow colonial agents to get themselves
or their friends appointed as stamp masters, the crown officers in charge of distributing
the stamps in the colonies. Acting on this advice, Jared Ingersoll, Connecticut's agent
in London, accepted the post of Connecticut Stamp Master, and Franklin was able to get
his henchman, John Hughes, appointed Stamp Master in Pennsylvania.
Franklin's reaction on reading the Virginia Resolves is therefore not at all surprising.
Denouncing the rashness of the Virginia leaders and the madness of the populace, Franklin
Franklin advised Hughes to act as a faithful and loyal servitor of the Crown in enforcing
the Stamp Tax. And Franklin's friend and ally in dominating Pennsylvania politics, Joseph
Galloway, wrote many newspaper articles in favor of the Stamp Act. If no help was to
be expected from such Tories as Franklin in rallying popular opposition to the Stamp Act,
of the Popular Liberal Leaders. A grave problem was the defection of erstwhile and future
radical liberal leaders. Thus, stunned and temporarily alienated by the bold courage
of Henry's Resolves, Alexander McDougall and John Moran Scott of New York, generally
radical leaders of that colony, pronounced the Resolves to be treasonable. But the major
Her blow to the libertarian cause came in Massachusetts. There, James Otis Jr., long-time leader of the Boston liberals and spark plug of American protest, began to defect from the liberal cause. Otis showed increasing signs of deviousness and instability, and perhaps of the insanity that was to plague him in later years. It is true that as early as June
When Massachusetts received word of the Stamp Act, Otis proposed that the
Massachusetts Assembly send a circular letter to the other colonial assemblies,
inviting them to a general Congress to be held in New York in October to ask
Britain for relief. But, on the other hand, in May, Governor Bernard had happily
reported to the Crown that Otis now repents in sackcloth and ashes for writing the rights
of the colonies, and that a new pamphlet of Otis's humbly begs Brinton's pardon for his
former stand. Furthermore, Otis's call for Stamp Act Congress was all well and good,
Congress was all well and good, but it would, after all, be another, if larger, assembly
ineffectually petitioning Parliament for relief.
The important thing was the popular reaction to the Virginia Resolves, and here Otis showed
his change of heart by denouncing them as reasonable.
And while Otis erratically continued to denounce the British in anonymous contributions to
with the Radical Boston Gazette, his public statements lauded the power of Parliament
and went so far as to ask for British troops to put down the rebellious Americans. If salvation
was to come, it would not be from James Otis or from the Stamp Act Congress. Massachusetts
and especially Boston had for years now been the great center of libertarian resistance
to the Depredations of Great Britain. But now its old spokesman, James Otis, was no
longer fit to lead the liberal cause. Oxenbridge Thatcher, who had written Massachusetts'
original principled protest against the Sugar Act before being watered down by Hutchinson,
exclaimed when he heard of the Virginia Resolves, They are men! And Thatcher, or a friend, immediately
The People of Virginia have spoke very sensibly, and the frozen politicians of Massachusetts
say they have spoke treason. Pray, gentlemen, is it treason for the deputies of the people
to assert their liberties or to give them away? We have been told that it is not prudence
for us to assert our rights in plain and manly terms. Nay, we have been told the word rights
must not be once named among us. Cursed prudence of interested designing politicians. But Oxenbridge
Thatcher lay on his deathbed. Was there then no one to rouse the people, no one to lead
Need the Boston masses into the streets to serve as the spearhead and vanguard of an
American revolution against the Stamp Act? Yes, there was one man. If Otis was a dependable,
radical leader no more, and if Thatcher lay dying, there was still the magnificent Sam
Adam saw clearly that the real fight against the stamp tax would have to take place in
the streets. He saw that the locus of pressure and unrest must be the appointed royal officials,
the enforcers of the Stamp Act. In particular, that popular pressure should focus on the
stamp distributors, the royal appointees who were in charge of selling the stamped paper
and who were happily preparing to assume their lucrative posts.
In the early summer of 1765, Sam Adams gathered together a group of Bostonians to lead and
direct the people of Boston in the streets.
The group was called the Loyal Nine.
Like the membership of Adams' Caucus Club, which comprised a cross-section of the town's
It included two distillers, Thomas Chase and the wealthy John Avery, Benjamin Eads, printer of the Boston Gazette, the Liberals' Party organ, small businessmen, artisans like the braziers Stephen Cleverly and John Smith, the jeweler George Trot, and Henry Bass, a cousin of Adams.
The headquarters of the group was Chase's distillery at Hanover Square. Adams rapidly
worked out a remarkably efficient structure for the radical movement. The vulnerable public
leaders of the fight, legislators, ministers and others, were not directly identified with
the popular mobs. The effective liaison and direction were maintained through the Loyal
In 1909, led by Adams, even though he was not an official member, the Bostonian populace
was unified into an effective force with the various groups, from wealthy merchants to
the bully boys of the taverns, playing complementary roles in the struggle. For the mass base of
the popular mobs, Adams was able to utilize the gangs of the north end and of the south
Every year on Guy Fawkes Day or Pope's Day, November 5, Boston's celebration of the defeat of the Catholic gunpowder plot of 1605 was traditionally climaxed by a quasi-friendly but violent clash between citizens of the North End and the South End.
In time, each section had developed a gang for this purpose and trained its members in paramilitary fashion to a finely honed edge.
Every year also, the quasi-friendly fighting became a bit bloodier.
Particularly effective was the South End Gang, which had been victorious in the 1764 Brujaha.
Law. The gang was headed by the shoemaker Ebenezer Macintosh, whose South End forces
totaled 2,000 men. Adams was able to press Macintosh and the South End into action as
his mass base, and by August 14 the radical liberals, smoothly organized by Adams, were
ready to strike. Adams was ready to give the signal for the first mob action against
against the Stamp Act, a deed that set the pattern and furnished the inspiration not
only for further riots against the stamps, but for all the riots down to the American
Revolution.
Adams realized that the focus of attack must be the stamp master.
On the morning of August 14, a Boston mob, directed by Adams and the Loyal Nine, hung
Hung an effigy of Andrew Oliver on a tree, dubbed the Liberty Tree, in Newberry Street.
Oliver, a brother-in-law of the Tory Lieutenant Governor, Thomas Hutchinson, had been appointed
stamp distributor in Massachusetts.
Alongside Oliver hung an effigy, the symbol of the hated Lord Bute, a large boot, with
an image of the devil crawling out of it.
The affair was a challenge flung at the Royal Government. Some of the Schroeder members
of the Council advised Governor Bernard to dismiss the whole episode as ostensibly a
silly prank. But Bernard, furious at the hard-hitting attacks in the Boston Gazette, decided to
accept the challenge. He was also advised to do so by Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson,
An Able Theoretician and the Chief Beneficiary of the Tory Cause in Massachusetts.
As Chief Justice, Hutchinson ordered the sheriff to cut the effigy down, and the council
washed its hands of responsibility by turning the problem over to the sheriff.
There was a considerable slip, however, between order and execution.
The sheriff, to his amazement and dismay, found that the effigy could be cut down only
by risking the officers' lives at the hands of the populace. The effigy was, so to speak,
the opening gun of the struggle. The radicals now decided to hammer the point home. By evening
a large crowd had gathered at the Liberty Tree. They cut down the effigy and, bearing
When it up began to march in a mock funeral procession, the mob included wealthy merchants,
many disguised in the work clothes of a laborer, and was led by Ebenezer Macintosh at the head
of his South Enders. First the mob went to the council building, where they made their
presence felt and where they shouted the stirring slogan, liberty, property and no stamps. The
The slogan was evidently patterned after the liberty, property and no excise of the cider
tax rebellion in the West of England two years before.
After impressing the council, the mob proceeded to serious business.
Andrew Oliver had just finished constructing a building at his dock and it seemed plausible
that from here he would distribute the stamped paper.
There, at the Kilby Street Dock, the mob quickly razed the menacing building completely
to the ground. From there, the disciplined crowd moved on to Oliver's home, where they
put on an impressive show for that worthy by beheading Oliver's effigy. The graphic
lesson did not escape the stamp master's understanding, especially as it was promptly
The Theory of Money and Credit
It smashed into the house, calling loudly for Oliver and threatening to kill him on the
spot. Finding that Oliver had fled to the military post on the island of Castle William,
the mob did the best it could by destroying the interior of his home. Governor Bernard
ordered the militia to beat the drums to sound an alarm, only to find, to his consternation,
that the drummers were all in the mob.
Hastily, Bernard, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor, also skipped
down to the safety of Castle William.
Thomas Hutchinson, the Tory ultra, was made of sterner stuff.
He walked with the sheriff to the Oliver home to order the mob to disperse.
Seeing them, one of the mob's leaders shouted,
The Governor and the Sheriff, to your arms, my boys!
A hail of stones fell upon the august officials as they hurried away.
August 14
Here was a day to live in song and story.
The first revolutionary blow had been struck by the colonists against the tyranny of the
British grand design.
For many years August 14 was celebrated throughout America as the happy day on which liberty
arose from a long slumber. Or, as Sam Adams thundered, the people shouted and their shout
was heard to the distant end of this continent. The next day the liberal leaders pressed their
advantage and continued the work that the mob had begun so skillfully. They visited
Oliver and informed him that the previous night was just a sample of what he could expect
unless he resigned his office immediately. Here then was the main point of the mob action,
revolutionary pressure on all stamp masters to resign their offices and thus make impossible
The distribution of any stamped paper, and hence any enforcement of the stamp tax.
Oliver promised to ask the Crown for permission to resign, and meanwhile to take no action
to enforce the stamp tax.
This reply satisfied the radical leadership and the loyal nine, but the radical masses
sensibly wanted to make very sure to dot the i's and cross the t's. In short, they demanded
nothing less than Oliver's immediate resignation. On the evening of the 15th, the mob built
another large bonfire and threatened to raze Oliver's house to the ground. The leaders
were able to dissuade them and the rank and file contented themselves with surrounding
in the House of Thomas Hutchinson. They called for his presence, but in vain, Hutchinson
had fled. He knew that this time the mob meant business. Adams and the Loyal Nine were jubilant.
Their mass pressure had forced the stamp master to resign, and his example was a standing
warning to anyone with the temerity to take his place. When one Tory declared that he
The story would not have been as spineless as Oliver. The Loyal Nine taught him an instructive
lesson by publicly fixing the date when his house would be destroyed. The Tory quickly
came to his senses and retracted his statement. The leaders now saw that mass action need
not stop with the intimidation of Oliver, that more could be and needed to be done.
In particular, they saw that it was necessary to cowl not only the stamp master but also
the whole clique of Tory officials appointed by the Crown. They were the enemy and not
simply an isolated stamp distributor. Particularly, the suspicion grew, with good reason, that
Thomas Hutchinson had secretly favored the stamp tax and that he was their most dangerous
The leaders also saw the sweep of public opinion on their side. Few people criticized the events of the 14th, and the leading congregational ministers of Massachusetts, liberals all, blessed the mob action and virtually called for more. Especially ardent in favor and resistance to the stamp tax were the Reverend Andrew Elliott, the Reverend Charles Chauncey, the Reverend
and Samuel Cooper, and, doubly especially, the great libertarian Reverend Jonathan Mayhew.
These men were friends of the secular leaders of the people, Adams, Otis, the wealthy Boston
merchant John Hancock, the brilliant young lawyer from Braintree, John Adams, and so
forth. Mayhew was particularly ardent in attacking arbitrary power, in battling the Stamp Act,
and Enchampioning the Right of Resistance by the People. He warned menacently that the
Stamp Act could not be enforced in Massachusetts without bloodshed, and he emphasized that
there were 60,000 fighting men in this colony alone.
On the night of August 26, the radicals struck again, escalating their revolutionary blows.
The mob gathered in full force around a bonfire in King Street, blowing on whistles and horns,
and shouting enthusiastically for liberty and property. Then, revealing striking discipline
and coordination, the mob, under the generalship of Ebenezer Macintosh, split into several
sections, each with its assigned tasks. One group went to the home of William Story, Deputy
Registrar of the Admiralty Court. Stories suspected of writing reports to England denouncing the
Boston merchants received treatment benefiting his actions and status. The mob destroyed
his papers, including his public papers, that would list the violators of customs regulations
and wrecked his home and office. Another group went after another key enemy, Benjamin Hollowell,
The Controller of the Customs, who had angered the Boston merchants by rigorous enforcements
of the trade laws. Hallowell's house was also wrecked and his papers, containing written
records relevant to enforcement of the British regulations, carried away. Macintosh now united
two sectors of the mob and marched on to the pièce de résistance of the evening, the
and the Home of Thomas Hutchinson.
Before the 26th, several opportunities had been given to Hutchinson by the liberals to deny his complicity in passing the Stamp Act.
But Hutchinson stood on his offended dignity and repeatedly refused to make the denial.
Even on the day of the 26th, Hutchinson was given a final opportunity to deny the charge,
but he refused to do so. The people could only interpret the lieutenant governor's lofty
silence as assent, so they proceeded to wreck his house with a zeal and thoroughness, surpassing
their ardent work of the night of August 14. The attack on the home of Thomas Hutchinson
served to polarize the political conflict in Massachusetts. It was one thing to use
the mob to put the fear of God into the stamp distributor and the customs collector. No
one, after all, could sympathize with these bureaucrats but their own families. But an
attack upon Hutchinson was a different story. Hutchinson was the nucleus and the leader
of the Small but Powerful Clique of Oligarchs who were privileged by the Royal Government.
An attack against him could only be interpreted as an attack upon the clique as a whole.
The struggle against Great Britain had now become, as a corollary, a domestic struggle
as well, and this was not surprising since the domestic ruling clique governed as a creature
of the Crown.
The government grew emboldened by the protests of the Hutchinson cabal at the treatment to
his home, and was fooled by the tactical camouflage of Adams and the Boston town meeting in publicly
repudiating the riot at Hutchinson's.
The council therefore boldly ordered the arrest of McIntosh, only to find that Adams, backed
by the leading merchants of the city promptly demanded Macintosh's immediate and unconditional
release. If not, they warned, no one would stand guard in the whole town of Boston, and
the Customs House would be pulled to the ground. The disillusioned rulers saw that Adams and
the liberals were still fully in control of the town of Boston and of the hearts of its
People, Ebenezer Macintosh was set free and rewarded by the people of Boston with a town
office.
The class struggle view that the Boston riots were lower class outburst directed against
the rich is rebutted by the multi-class nature of the liberal movement, wealthy merchants
No revolution advances in uniform, straight-line fashion.
and Human Action. Instead, it always proceeds in zigs and zags. Adams and his allies saw
clearly that it was now in order to slow down the movement. After all, the point had been
beautifully made. Mass action had virtually forced the stamp master to resign and intimidated
any potential successor. It had intimidated the royal officers, Governor Bernard having
This occurred at the end of September, when Governor Bernard received the stamped papers from England and housed them in Castle William.
The Loyal Nine threatened to storm the castle and destroy the papers, but the group was mollified when the Governor assured it that he had no power whatever to distribute the stamped papers.
Adams spent the intervening weeks constructively, perfecting his organization and strengthening
his apparatus. The Loyal Nine expanded its organization into the Sons of Liberty, a name
proudly taken from the great speech of Colonel Isaac Barre, which had warmly referred to
the Americans by this noble name. The Sons of Liberty consisted of a cross-section of
and the Occupations of the Town, from Poor Laborers to Wealthy Merchants.
For its mass base, Adams induced the North End and the South End to channel their rambunctious
energies into more constructive deeds and united them to the Suns.
For Guy Fawkes Day 1765, coming at a strategic time for the Stamp Tax, Adams prepared to
to Hold a Union Feast, Celebrating the New Found Unity of the Two Sections. Macintosh
was given a cadre of 150 militarily trained men to lead his mobs. The Sons of Liberty
busied themselves by drawing up a list of Tory oligarchs whose homes might be sacked
should the need arise. Governor Bernard now placed his hopes on the assembly convening
at the end of September. Remembering the Sugar Act agitation, Bernard believed that the rural
farmers would again prove a conservative force, but he found, to his astonishment, that the stamp
tax had truly radicalized and unified the whole colony. He wrote home that the rural people
seemed even more violent than the annoying Bostonians. They talk of revolting from Great
Britain in the most familiar manner, and declare that the British forces never will subdue
the inland. Furthermore, Oxenbridge Thatcher had died, and Bernard now found his nemesis,
Sam Adams, in the House as leader of the liberal forces. To Bernard's urging of the General
Court to enforce the Stamp Act as the law of the Supreme Parliament, the House replied
said firmly that only the Massachusetts assembly had the right to tax and to make internal
laws for the American colonies. By mid-October, Governor Bernard was wailing to the Crown
that Massachusetts was in a state of outright rebellion. The militia refused to obey his
orders. The real authority of the government is at an end. Some of the principal ringleaders
If Patrick Henry had sounded the clarion call for resistance, Sam Adams, the loyal nine,
and the Sons of Liberty had now blazed the path for action.
August 14 raised the standard for mass rebellion against the enforcers of the Stamp Act.